Patience of a saint and knowledge of a god.

Putting this into practice is sometimes very hard when the user on the other end of the line is utterly (and I mean UTTERLY) dense. I've been very guilty of figuring out the issue during the first minute or two of the description and interrupting the caller - BAD tech, bad bad bad tech! I do try to balance that out with extreme positive reinforcement such as using expletives like "Perfect!" or "Excellent!" when they catch on to what I need them to do.

I've since moved on from helpdesk and am now a server tech for one of the server labs in another company, but those skills I picked up from that job (plus years of customer service prior to it) still come in handy.